Parents of students at McKinley Elementary in Compton won an important victory for school-reform advocates, parents and students throughout the state last week when a judge protected the parents’ rights to invoke what is called the “parent trigger.” This refers to a 2010 state law allowing a majority of parents of students in an underperforming school to petition the school to be take extraordinary measures to improve student performance, including conversion to a charter school.

The ruling is encouraging because it gives options to students in failing schools. The Compton Unified School District ought to stop obstructing the legal rights of its parents and cooperate in moving the parents’ will forward.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Anthony J. Mohr ruled that the Compton district violated the First Amendment rights of parents who petitioned to reform the school when the district administrators imposed onerous standards for verifying parent petitions. One obstacle was a requirement that petitioning parents present a photo ID and participate in an interview with administrators. The school board and teachers union opposed the parents’ petition.

The parent-trigger law is one of a series of education reforms passed by the Legislature in January 2010 in an effort to garner some of the $4.35 billion offered through the Obama administration’s Race to the Top education initiative. The reforms passed the Democratic-controlled Legislature and were signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The law gives parents of students the right to petition for drastic changes at failing schools. As Ben Boychuk of the Heartland Institute wrote in City Journal this month, “Under the law, if at least half of eligible parents at a persistently failing school sign a petition, the school district must undertake one of several prescribed ‘intervention models.'” Options include closing the school and moving students to an alternate school; drastic transformation plans to include changes in staff, teachers and the curriculum and converting the school to a charter school.

The Compton parents wanted a charter school. In December 2010, 61 percent of parents at McKinley Elementary signed a petition to transform the failing institution into a charter school. The Compton Education Association, the teachers union, vigorously opposed the petition, citing recent performance gains and contending that the law was not meant for schools that are improving. McKinley is one of the worst-performing schools in California, ranking in the bottom 10 percent of all schools. Eventually, though, the teachers union’s position was shared by the school board, and the parents’ efforts were rejected.

On Feb. 24, the Compton district’s Board of Trustees voted unanimously to oppose the parent petition, for a variety of reasons, all without substance: Some of the signatures might not have been valid, dates were missing, birthdates were incorrect, there were typos on the petition, and parents did not provide enough supporting documentation. The decision by the board came on the heels of district administrators subjecting parents to interviews and requiring them to provide photo identification to very their signatures. Why not a simple phone call to verify the signature?

In a statement by the school board announcing its rejection of the petitions, the board’s motives became clear: “The petition sought to implement a ‘restart model’ at McKinley Elementary School would have removed the school from CUSD oversight and transferred authority over to a Los Angeles-based charter school organization designated by ‘parent trigger’ petitioners.” The school district did not want to lose control of McKinley, and surely the union did not want to lose the teaching positions.

Parents, with the help of a local advocacy group, Parent Revolution, sued the district over the petition verification process, calling it unconstitutional. Judge Mohr on March 21 ruled in the parents’ favor, calling the district’s tactics to invalidate signatures unconstitutional and ordering the district to count the petitions by April 1.

Judge Mohr also suggested the district use an independent group, like the League of Women Voters, to count the petitions, but the district rejected his idea. To us, that seems like the district is more interested in obstruction than verifying the signatures.

The process for the parent trigger is imperfect and needs to be strengthened to protect parents and teachers from further abuses. The state Board of Education is working to iron out the rules. We hope the state board works to strengthen the parent trigger law, making it less complicated for parents to petition for better schools, instead of undermining the law like the Compton Unified School District thus far has done.

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